Family Meal Planner and Shopping List

I just finished designing the first of many options for personalized spiral notebooks for the family.

As more designs are created, you will be able to mix and match what you want in your notebook/organizer.

Right now we have a family meal planner/shopping list. It is fully customizable with family name and your choice of colors.

Our nifty design includes one meal planning block for each day of the week as well as an extra block for miscellaneous snacks or party foods you'll need to make. We've stepped it up and also added a detachable shopping list on the side.

You just plan your meals and use it as a guide for your shopping list. When you're done, simply tear off the shopping list on the perforated "tear here" line, and you're ready to go to the store.

These menu planners will come in a personalized spiral notebook with 52 meal planning sheets per book. That's enough to meal plan and grocery shop for an entire year.

Craft Happy

I have been in a very craft mood lately. I made my memory board as shown in my previous post, but I also made a fabric covered magnetic board. Like the memory board, I covered it in fabric and secured with painters tape (making tape will do the trick as well).

Then I hot glued some rubber washers to the back and attached it to the wall using mirror clips you can buy at your local hardware store. The mirror clips hold the sheet metal a little away from the wall, which is why you need the rubber washers.



I also finished up buying supplies to make my notebooks. Now I just need to create my templates in photoshop and print my pages to bind them. I'm very excited about this. I'm going to make a bills/home organizer for my family.

I thought I had taken pictures of the bed my husband and I built for our son, but I can't find them. I'll have to post them later.

New Craft Toy

I seriously need to stop browsing at the craft stores. I always find something new I want to try. Then it eats at me until I get to try it. So yesterday I broke down and bought a Cinch Bindery Tool (using a 40% off coupon of course). It's basically a tool that helps you bind your own wire bound books/calendars/etc.

My friend and I made some journals over the weekend using the twine method with printer paper and cardboard. They turned out pretty great. We decided that we wanted to make more. And I thought that having a bindery tool would help wonders with that and would save so much time. So I bought one.



It punches the holes in your paper, regardless of how big or small your project is. You can disengage individual punches if you want in case a punch would cause a half circle on the edge or your project, or if you wanted more spacing between holes. It has a place to hold the wire so you can easily slide your project on. And it also has the crimp in the back where you press the wire ring closed. It's seriously so simple. It would take less than 3 minutes to bind a project from start to finish. And it's pretty idiot proof!

Fabric Covered Memory Board

When I was younger I had a very pink, very girly fabric memory board. I love memory boards for displaying pictures and I wanted to incorporate one into my craft area. My original one was too childish for that area and I didn't want to spend an arm and a leg on a more adult themed one. So I decided to redo my original one. You can also make them from scratch fairly easily.

Tool List:
ruler
pen/pencil
scissors
screw driver
staple gun
fabric
ribbon


I forgot to take pictures of the decontruction process, but it's pretty easy. I simply ripped off the original ribbon and fabric. I didn't even both to take the original staples out, but you can if you want. I also removed the hanging hooks and kept them to reattach when I was done.

What was left was a square piece of MDF board with foam on the front. I picked out my fabric and ribbon and went to work on recovering the board.

I measured and cut my fabric and ribbon to the proper size.

I did not have a staple gun at the time, so I secured the fabric around the edges using painters tape. It works just fine for the fabric. However, for the ribbon, I had to go purchase a staple gun to make sure it would stay tight over time.



Then I reattached the hanging hardware



I do suggest adding some kind of push pin to some of the intersections of ribbon for added tightness, but once you load it up with pictures, it doesn't matter anyway.

Better Late Than Never: St Patrick's Day

I finally remembered to bring my SD card with me so I can upload some pics from our St Patrick's Day fun.

My husband and I come from Irish lineage. His grandparents are actually first generation Americans. Mine goes back a little further, but we're just as proud nonetheless.

Here is our little lad:


I made good old shepherd's pie for dinner (using beef, not lamb)


For dessert we had shamrock cupcakes:


On one of my most treasured possessions:


Little cupcakes


With green icing, ready to serve:


I got the shamrock cupcake pans from Hobby Lobby. Some of the cupcakes turned out horrible, but once I figured out the trick to getting them out the pan, they were great. You cannot simply pop them out of the silicon mold. You have to pull on the mold in each direction to loosen it up. Otherwise, your cupcakes will stick and fall apart when you pop them out.

I made the green icing with a TON of food coloring and some vanilla frosting. I was too lazy to make my homemade frosting, maybe next St Patrick's Day.

Cricut Dust Cover

Ever since I got my cricut last year, I have been seeing all these beautiful dust covers people have make for them. The cricut really isn't an eye sore, but why leave it plain jane when you can jazz is up with some pretty fabric?

When I first started looking for patterns and tutorials, all I could find were ones you had to pay for. And why pay for something you could get for free or even come up with on your own?

Well last night I finally found a free tutorial. My son went to sleep, and I went to work. It was a very simple project. I tweaked the tutorial and added elastic to the bottom to keep the dust cover in place. It was a simple project, even though I don't have the great confidence in sewing curves.

I am in love with my creation. The coordinating fabrics I used match fabrics I used for my picture frame dry erase board and my fabric covered magnetic board (which I'll show you how to do in a later post)

Here is what I came up with: